


All That Glitters

by evilythedwarf



Category: Dirty Sexy Money
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, a love for the ages, super short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 18:51:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilythedwarf/pseuds/evilythedwarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karen/Nick mini-drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Nick loved her before he knew better than to love a Darling and he hasn't stopped loving her since and every wedding and every husband and every divorce hurt just as much as when they didn't got married, when he didn't get to be her husband and when they fell apart.


	2. Chapter 2

It takes her years to admit that they were ever anything other than good childhood friends and when she can finally say it aloud, just like that it hurts again, just as much as the first time. (Or maybe more?)

It doesn’t keep her from saying it again and again and again, that they were once Karen & Nick, until nobody can forget that once upon a time, Karen was happy and loved and… 

And if she can’t forget it, then why should everyone else?


	3. Chapter 3

There’s no pretending, with them. There’s no denying who they are and that their history goes way back and means so much more than anything written in stone or any vows whispered. They can’t pretend she’s not wearing a wedding dress and that her groom is a few feet away, that his daughter is not hers and that they moved on and away from each other.

They can’t pretend this is their first dance and that they’ve just met and that this mind-blowing chemistry surprises them. They are Nick and Karen, and they get no fresh starts.


	4. Chapter 4

He wishes he didn’t know her, he wishes he didn’t plain **know** the Karen who hid under her bed with all her (many) dollies when her parents were away and Pat and Brian had their own little club of two and her house just felt so big and she felt a little less tiny when she could pretend there was nothing else in the world but the floor beneath her bed. (And he wishes he couldn’t remember hiding in there with her.) He can’t know that and look at her now, as she asks for an annulment to her latest mistake, he can’t know that and look at her and think, this is the girl he’s ~~love~~ d known for his entire life.


	5. Chapter 5

When she was 5 years old, her brand new puppy fell off the balcony and died. Trip bought her a pony and Nicky brought her his favourite stuffed dog. His name was Matt. 

She can’t remember her pony’s name or the exact color of its eyes or what it felt like to ride it but in her apartment on 5th avenue, the one she insists on keeping despite the fact that ownership by a Darling would make its price insanely high because in between husbands she likes a place for herself, hidden away in the prettiest room, there’s Matt. And she can remember what she was wearing when she got him and that when Nick hugged her she thought nothing would ever be bad enough that he couldn’t fix.


	6. Chapter 6

She met her first husband on her second week of self-imposed exile, after It All Went Wrong. She was still too young and her Daddy still didn’t think it was a good idea but she was his little girl and Karen gave her mother the look [that said: you owe me] and Tish put a hand on Trip’s shoulder and that was that. She won. [Didn’t know yet that sometimes when you win you lose.]


	7. Chapter 7

Freddy kneels and holds her hand in his and as he slips the princess-cut solitaire she feels nothing. No ring ever felt perfect except the one with the micro-stone that was all nineteen year old Nick could afford. It was loose on her finger cause he picked the wrong size and the most beautiful thing she’d seen in her life. [That’s the one she keeps on her safe, the only one she could never get rid off.] No ring ever made her lose her breath and cry [happy] tears and truth is, it’s not the ring or the diamond or the fact that she’s drunk more often than not these days, it’s that it’s not Nick who’s giving it to her.


	8. Chapter 8

She didn’t realize how very wrong she’d been until she moved out of New York’s most expensive penthouse. It was silly, thinking anyone could ever made her as happy as Nick did. She was twenty years old and just divorced and she missed Nick George more than she’d ever miss anyone in the world.


	9. Chapter 9

That everyone can see she’s so hung up on Nick George she’s been trying to replace him for the last fifteen years never even occurs to her. No one ever calls her on it because the Epic Disaster that was the end of Nick & Karen is one of those things they will never talk about, as if not putting it in words makes it less real.


	10. Chapter 10

And she could handle it – her marriage being a farce, her life being just what everyone always said it would be – if he wasn’t around. Because if Nick wasn’t here, she wouldn’t feel like no one would ever love her like he did. If Nick didn’t look at her – with those eyes that see her – she wouldn’t be reminded of how empty her life is and how once, when she was nineteen, a boy told her she could be so much more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished writing these in June, 2008.


End file.
